All of Zero Contradictions's Comments + Replies
Purple fire accused me of having an arrogant tone and he/she is assuming that I'm the one who wrote the essay. Neither of those assumptions are true, and I was simply pointing that out.
There's nothing wrong with posting an essay to see what other people think about it. I never claimed to be an expert on economics.
you adopted such an arrogant tone
I didn't write this post. I'm just sharing it. If you want the author to read your comments, then you should post them on his blog.
Thanks for commenting. However, he also wrote in the same paragraph:
There are no written records of it, but I'm pretty sure that's what happened, or something like that.
He wrote "or something like that", so I think that allows some variation of two (main) groups fighting each other in a war. He gave his reasoning for why individuals would team into larger groups in the previous paragraph, but I will agree that it's mostly speculative how many warring groups there were. Regardless, I'm convinced that the island's environmental degradation and population collapse were both most likely caused by overpopulation.
This seems like a story that's unsupported by any evidence, and no better than fiction.
Not at all. It's just a description of the island's population over time, followed by a logical conclusion of what most likely happened when the ecosystem becomes overpopulated. Without sufficient famine, disease, or predation to cull the population back below the carrying capacity, and without new crops, technologies, or resources to satisfy the population, the inevitable outcome is conflict over resources. Which sentences are "unsupported" in your opinion?
The ecocid...
He's referring to biological value, as it's defined in: "What is value?". Biological value is not the same as the type of value that you're thinking of. It's distinct from the other types of value. Biological value claims are truth claims, unlike other types of value claims. A claim about biological value, such as "cutting down the tree is bad for the tree" or "overdosing on fentanyl is bad for you" is a truth judgment, not a value judgment. I could want to cut down the tree, and still understand that it is bad for the tree to be cut down.
...Not only weren'
You misunderstand that paragraph. I'm friends with the author, and he doesn't believe in objective morality, nor does he believe that it's "morally correct" to reproduce. Replicating a genome implies reproduction (unless it's the genome is being artificially created through cloning), but reproduction doesn't necessarily imply replicating a genome. For example, if you reproduce with someone who has very different genetics (i.e. someone from a different race), then half of the offspring's genome would be quite different from your genome, compared to if you r...
1Could you please explain why "biological purpose" points to a conceptual mess?
Was there anything in particular that you specifically disagree with Van Allen on, either in my summary or the first (free) chapter of his book? I shared the link that you sent me with him on Discord, and he told me that he's seen it before. He also said that the link that you sent still doesn't specify the structure in enough detail, as far as he can see, and that it doesn't really matter.
Like, I noticed that O'Neill proposed: 1. retrieving the cylinder materials from the Moon and 2. setting up either a Rotary Pellet Launcher or a Transport Linear Acceler...
The square/cube isn't really relevant to the O'Neill cylinder itself, but it is relevant when considering what kinds of space infrastructure could be created to launch the cylinder or its components into space. I agree with the reasoning that he stated in the book regarding this topic.
I think he's right about the maximum length of steel cables at Earth surface gravity. Granted, space would have much weaker gravity, so assembling an O'Neil cylinder in space and having it never land on any planets could make this a non-issue.
Also, the bullet points are my at...
I don't believe that gene-editing is a viable solution to preventing dysgenics for the entire population.
Unregulated reproduction has the potential to harm others, so it's reasonable to regulate it.
1The Race FAQs has lots of high-quality information on genetic group differences: https://zerocontradictions.net/faqs/race
I don't support the past eugenics or forced sterilizations that you've mentioned. However, I still support eugenics. I argue that reproduction licenses would protect human rights: https://zerocontradictions.net/faqs/eugenics#human-rights
This is a great idea. I've brainstormed and compiled a list of additional ideas that could also help raise fertility rates. https://zerocontradictions.net/faqs/overpopulation#boosting-western-fertility
This is honestly some of the best feedback that I've received on this site, so thank you for your comment. I edited the introduction and I clarified what I meant by "redundant" research.
I once tried to quantify the validity of academic research, but I gave up on trying that. I talk more about this in my reply to Seth Herd.
I didn't come up with the title for the essay, but I re-titled this LW post, so thank you for your suggestion. In hindsight, I'll agree that my comment came off as condescending to some extent, so I edited that as well. I just haven't been in the best mood when I post on this site since I've gotten used to people giving me downvotes, disagreeing with my comments, and sometimes sending condescending comments into my inbox, though that doesn't justify me being condescending to others. Regardless of the essay's title, the essay's contents raise serious questi...
The bigger issue is that not everybody agrees on what's true or false. I did my best to address these considerations in greater depth in my sequel essay: https://zerocontradictions.net/epistemology/academia-critique
Regardless, the point of the essay is that the overall academic enterprise is not designed to seek the truth. Ideological bias, perverse incentives, social circularity, naive/fake empiricism, and misleading statistics (e.g. p-hacking) compromise the production of truthful research. The sequel essay elaborates on all these ongoing issues. I could expand it even further, but it would probably take me a week to do so, when I have more important priorities.
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1If you think that "humans will be living on Mars and O'Neill cylinders 30 years from now", then you probably haven't tried to calculate whether that's actually economically feasible and whether it's practical to get to Mars and live there:
- The Square/Cube Law makes it very difficult to build megastructures like space elevators, orbital rings, etc.
- 12km is the maximum length that a steel cable can support its own mass at Earth surface gravity. If it is any longer, it will snap under its own weight.
- O'Neill Cylinders will never be economically feasible to build
If your goal was to post stupid comments with the intent of angering me, then you did not succeed. The only thing you have accomplished is wasting your own time. I will not respond to you any further.
One can only imagine how empty and miserable your life is, given that you have nothing better to do besides trolling strangers on the Internet. Out of everything else that you could do with your time, that's really what you like to do for fun?
If you're just going to mock my ideas without rationally engaging with them, then take a hike. You clearly don't have anything to offer to this thread, besides making comments that suggest that your intelligence is quite lacking.
You still don't have any rational arguments to defend your views, so there's no reason to consider anything that you say. Again, your behavior is pathetic, disrespectful, irrational, and unacceptable.
My point is that when LessWrongers see not enough water for a given population, we try to fix the water not the people.
That's also what I proposed. On my Georgism page, I explained that I support taxing water so that water will be used more efficiently. In the Overpopulation FAQs, I explained why that's only a temporary solution, not a long-term solution to overpopulation, but you didn't know that because you never bothered to read it and engage with the arguments that I made.
...I read your argument that preventing people from dying of starvation and/or disea
I want to read actual interesting posts and not posts about "Why doesn't LessWrong like my content? Aren't you a cult if you don't agree with me?".
That was not the point of the post. The post has many interesting linked essays for you to read, if you bothered to click on the hyperlinks and read them.
how we're going to run out of water
The Overpopulation FAQs is about overpopulation, not necessarily water scarcity. Water scarcity can contribute to overpopulation, but it is only one of multiple potential causes.
if we don't forcibly sterilize people
That is a s...
It would be more rational for you to engage with the bullet points and the essays that are hyperlinked on the page. There is nothing wrong with giving a comparison of disagreements between two different movements. If anything, it's necessary to do that in order to explore different (and potentially better) ideas. Your paragraph of mockery and gibberish is pathetic, and it doesn't accomplish anything.
Viva Longevity by Chris MacAskil has some good videos on this topic. The descriptions for these video have more links to other videos and articles on the same topic.
The Poop Whisperer: Dr Johan Van Den Bogaerde on Gut Health - Viva Longevity
Actually, this was supposed to be a linkpost. I thought had I had submitted the post this way, but I guess not. In any case, the PDF version and the video version were already included I first submitted this post, and I edited this to be a linkpost to link to the original essay.
The post makes a separate claim with each sentence and, instead of going on to reasons, continues with yet another claim.
I don't think you read the entire essay then. Only the essay's introduction can be seen directly on this post. You'd have to view the PDF, the video, or the blog ...
Well, it looks like GitHub is running again. You should be able to view those links now if you click on them.
The problem is that my site is hosted on GitHub, and GitHub is currently down. Unfortunately, you won't be able to view those links until GitHub is up and running again.
it's necessary for it to be morally acceptable
What is "morally acceptable"? I think morality is an illusion. I've also argued that eugenics can be defended within the humanist value/moral framework of the West.
Your brother should get to go into cryonics and be revived once we can heal him.
That's a terrible idea. Cryonics is unlikely to succeed. My family also can't afford to put him into cryonics. It's also not any more likely that we could fix my brother, even if we did revive him with cryonics.
Failing that, it's just the risk you take reproducing.
Why? An...
I agree. I would support genetic engineering in some cases, but I've explained why I don't believe that is an adequate solution for humanity. It won't solve the problems of dysgenics or overpopulation.
you don't get to take "eugenics being good" as a given when you make a post, and you have to argue first that it's worth talking about, but like, that's exactly what this post is trying to do.
Yeah, that seems to be one of the most common criticisms of my FAQs pages. I actually agree that some people would be more receptive to my arguments if I tried to argue ...
If we can't get tech advanced enough to become shapeshifters, modify already grown bodies, we don't get to mess with genes.
Why not? As I explained in the essay, modern civilization will collapse without some form of eugenics.
I will never support tools that let people select children by any characteristic, they would have been used against me and so many of my friends.
You're probably still a eugenicist in some sense. Some people would argue that opposing incest and supporting abortion of any kind counts as eugenics.
Also, negative Eugenics laws have existed ...
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1I'm not going to respond to most of what you wrote here because I think this will be an unproductive discussion.
What I will say is that I think it would help to reevaluate how you're defining all the terms that you're using. Many of your disagreements with the OP essay are semantic in nature. I believe that you will arrive at a richer and more nuanced understanding of epistemology if you learn the definitions used in the OP essay and the author's blog and use those terms to understand epistemology instead. Many of the things that you wrote in your comment ...
It would be more productive if you gave a rational argument against eugenics. I shouldn't have to tell you this, but "fuck off" is not a rational argument. LessWrong claims to be a forum for rational discussions. If you don't have rational arguments against this post, then this is not the right forum for you.
...If we can't get tech advanced enough to become shapeshifters, modify already grown bodies, we don't get to mess with genes. I will never support tools that let people select children by any characteristic, they would have been used against me and so ma
Never leave a question to philosophers
He was talking about academic philosophers.
An isomorphism common to each of the systems.
Are you saying that the mechanism of correspondence is an "isomorphism"? Can you please describe what the isomorphism is?
Knowledge is based in correspondence to reality
As the essay explains, knowledge doesn't correspond to reality. Knowledge represents reality.
For example, it was considered "true" hundreds of years ago that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Everyone was as strongly convinced that that was a fact as we are now of th...
California is a clean energy pioneer.
That ignores how California has had many electricity blackouts due to the state's energy policies. California also imports a lot of energy from other states since non-nuclear green energy doesn't produce enough power for the state.
Can you please explain why you doubt the proposed solution?
Models tend to be based on observations, but I agree with you that I should explain how observations would affect the population model. I updated the page to explain this. If I finish learning Javascript, I might even program a basic model to display on my site.
the path to shrinking (or even holding constant) may be less desirable (though neither seems great) than the "natural" cycle of overpopulation and shrinking.
Population growth, overpopulation, and shrinking (war, disease, and famine) is indee...
I think I agree, so I will edit that paragraph. However, I don't believe that California's current resource consumption is sustainable.
You cannot engage (in politics) in any better way than by backing a candidate.
Why do you believe that?
Backing a candidate is an opportunity to change political rhetoric.
How does it do that? Especially if it involves backing a mainstream candidate?
I don't need to back a candidate to change political rhetoric. A more effective way to change political rhetoric is figure out ways to change the current culture.
By supporting a candidate, we are instigating a conversation.
I doubt it. I don't think you're interested in having an open-minded conversation. I suspect...
I am surprised at section 3; I don't remember anyone who seriously argues that women should be dependent on men.
That’s because almost nobody views humans through a biological realism worldview. For more info, see: Understanding Biological Realism, https://zerocontradictions.net/#bio-realism. In this case, Family and Society in particular is probably the best introduction, out of each of the essays in the list. https://thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com/2014/04/family-and-society.html
I’m also not the author of that essay (otherwise it would have my name on i...
That's not true either. It may not be feasible to achieve below replacement fertility using only pre-industrial birth control technology. It would definitely be difficult to achieve that and produce sufficient birth control for hundreds of millions of people without industrial technology.
Regardless, new birth control innovations still increased both the availability and effectiveness of birth control, which still contributed to lowering birth rates. All birth control methods have pros and cons, and when people have more options to choose from, it becomes e...
Actually, I have a few last points to say.
It's a dubious assumption that fertility decline is caused mostly by birth control. Fertility declined long before birth control became widespread.
That's simply not true. If you read Wikipedia and its external sources, you would learn that birth control was actually increasingly common in the developed world during the 1800s. So, it's logically sound to conclude that increased birth control was the real reason why fertility rates declined across the developed world during the 1800s and early 1900s. Birth control pr...
Rising women status contributed more than everything else combined.
As the essay explained, increased birth control was necessary for that to occur. Women cannot pursue higher education or careers if they primarily work as homemakers who raise children. Birth control was necessary to liberate women from childcare if they so choose, so birth control was still the main factor that caused fertility rates to decline over the last 200 years.
That was a continuation of trend which started more than a century before that, after temporary baby boom reversal ended.
Bi...
The first is that fertility decline is caused mostly by birth control.
If birth control hasn't been enabling fertility rates to decline, then what has? Birth control has existed ever since the Ancient Egyptians. However, the increasing availability of the birth control pill, other contraception methods, and the legalization of abortion during the 60s and 70s (in the US) are notable for contributing to the declining fertility rates in the US.
The essay also argues that reductions in wealth cause declines in fertility rates. In the last century, we can observe...
Population Dynamics are still part of Biological Realism, so what I wrote isn't quite wrong, but I've edited the page to clarify what I meant.
It's at least not obvious, considering that you seen to disagree with George himself about population dynamics.
Have you seen my webpage explaining it? I'm not convinced that George understood population dynamics at all.
There are a lot of different things that make people support Georgism - it has intersections with all kind of views across the political spectrum.
I'm aware of this. I've written about it too.
...Not becaus
Here you are proposing to take a simple and straightforward idea of Georgism that people from all across the political spectrum can agree on, and explain it through the complexity and controversy of "Biological Realism".
That's not what I said. My point was that understanding population dynamics makes people more likely to support Georgism, and that population dynamics is part of biological realism. Even if people deny biology, promoting biological realism is still good for our society, for other reasons. I'd even say that understanding population dynamics ...
I'm not a revolutionary. I'm a reformist. As I've already said, I want a gradual transition to Georgism. That's what I support, and I do not endorse a revolutionary transition to Georgism.
The transition to Georgism doesn't have to be a revolution. The abolition of slavery in the US wasn't really a revolution either. Slavery was gradually outlawed in the northern states, and then it eventually got outlawed nationwide. Yes, it was a radical social change, but everybody today agrees that it was the right thing to do. Abolishing slavery lead to a wealthier and...
The point of the essay is that fertility will eventually increase again, if enough time passes, even if that takes several generations.
It may be true that culture can evolve faster than genes, but culture is not homogenous, so I don't think we can predict that all subcultures will evolve to adopt low fertility memetics. Eventually, the low fertility memetics and the people who practice them will slowly die out. The essay also gave examples of how the fundamentalist Muslims, the Amish, and Ultra-Orthodox Jews have some of the highest fertility rates in the ...
I wrote at least 30 years. 30 years may not be enough to have a smooth transition. A transition will probably also take less time if it occurs right after a real estate bubble pops.
Nobody is denying that a transition may have some economic losers, but the same is true of any political system that you choose. Plenty of people said the same thing when all the slaves in the United States were emancipated, which resulted in the largest property loss in US history. It obviously sucked for the slave owners to lose trillions of dollars worth of property, but I do...
I'm not sure what you mean by that. I was just trying to describe how Georgism controls land rights. Ownership and possession both have very different definitions in most legal systems.
I disagree. I think that access to birth control is the main factor that has been affecting fertility rates because birth control is necessary to enable the modern lifestyle that you're talking about. As a thought experiment, if all the world's birth control instantly disappeared, then it would be normal for everybody who has heterosexual sex to have large families, especially since modern technology ensures that nearly all infants live to adulthood. I've written some more detailed explanations in my Population Dynamics FAQs.
Although it's a common belief t...
This post is a link post that links to the TheWaywardAxolotl. I figured that more people would read the essay if the text was displayed directly on LessWrong, so I copied the text from the blog post and pasted it into the LessWrong post. The author has said that he doesn't mind people doing this as long as they include a link back to his blog. I'm sure I'm not the only one on this forum who shares content that I didn't write myself. It's pretty normal to do that on social media.
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